The 1,5-benzodiazepines are important skeletons frequently contained in medicinal chemistry. Herein, we described an unexpected tandem cyclization/transfer hydrogenation reaction for obtaining chiral 2,3-disubstituted 1,5-benzodiazepines. The enolizable aryl aldehydes were chosen as substrates to react with symmetric and unsymmetric o-phenylenediamines. The unforeseen tandem reaction occurred among many possible latent side reactions under chiral phosphoric acid catalysis and affords the corresponding products in moderate yields and regioselectivities, good diastereoselectivities, and enantiomeric ratio (up to 99:1).

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N-substituted tetrahydroquinoxalines (37 examples) were step-economically obtained in good yield (<97%) and ee (<99%) with readily available substrates. The reaction proceeds through an interesting regioselective Heyns rearrangement / enantioselective transfer...